What is the Organizational Structure of Education Services?

At Skilljar, we spend a lot of time speaking with customer training professionals at a variety of different companies. Among other industry trends, we’re always curious to hear about the structure of their teams. What does a successful Education Services team look like today? What are the goals and responsibilities of each team member? In this blog post, we’ll outline a few ways other Education Services teams have structured their departments. We hope it helps provide some insight, as you continue to build out your own team.1. The Customer Success Focused TeamTeams that focus on customer success are typically found at small, but growing technology companies. Their goals are often around customer retention, onboarding, product adoption, and customer engagement.To accomplish these goals, Customer Training teams may have headcount for a few different roles, including:

• VP Customer Success: Someone in this position is in charge of reducing customer churn, while also optimizing the effectiveness of their team. Their success can be determined by metrics, such as the percent of revenue churn, as well as their operating costs, and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

• Training Manager: Training Managers are typically tasked with launching and managing a customer training program. This involves everything from marketing training, to demonstrating ROI. Their success metrics include the number of trained customers, and product usage.

• Instructional Designer: Instructional designers are responsible for creating high-quality courses quickly and efficiently. They often engage with subject matter experts, and collect feedback as needed. Their success can be measured by viewing the number of courses produced, as well as their completion rate, and course satisfaction.

In addition to these roles, a team that focuses on customer success may also hire someone in training operations. 2. The Services Focused TeamIn contrast, teams that focus on services are typically found at larger companies with traditional services organizations, or revenue-focused success organizations. Their goals are often around services revenue, and implementation, as well as services sales and provisioning.With this in mind, Customer Training Teams at these types of organizations may have similar job titles, but prioritize different activities:

• VP Education Services: Someone in this position often has ambitious revenue goals, and is responsible for demonstrating the ROI of their department. Their success can be gauged by looking at training revenue, customer satisfaction, and the overall profitability of their department.

• Certification Manager: Certification managers are responsible for launching and managing a certification program. This involves managing vendor relationships, driving customers to training, and evaluating the program to contribute to its growth. Their success metrics include the number of certifications, and certification revenue.

In addition to these roles, teams that focus on services may also have a Training Manager, an instructional designer, and someone in training operations.